Collective agreement between VR and SA 2016

The agreement between member organizations of ASÍ and SA was signed 21 January 2016 and put to a vote among ASI´s member organizations, including VR, in February 2016. The agreement was accepted with 91.28% of the vote. A similar agreement between VR and FA was signed on 22 January and also accepted in a vote among members with an overwhelming majority.

Below are the main elements of the agreement. Please note that this is a translation only, in matters of dispute please refer to the original in Icelandic.

Pension rights

The purpose of the collective agreement is to increase the pension rights of workers in the private sector from 56% to 76% of the average income over the working life and equal vesting of pension rights between the private and the public sector. To achieve this the contribution of employers to the pension funds will be increased in steps by 3.5%, from 8% to 11.5% in the years 2016 to 2018. The pension rights will increase by 36% and disability and Child and family pensions will rise in the same proportion.

Wage changes

The aim of the agreement is also to adapt wage and benefit changes for the years 2016-2018 to the framework agreement of the social partners from 27th of October 2015.

Wages will change so that instead of 5.5% wage increase guarantee there will be 6.2% general wage increase on January 1st 2016 instead of May 1st 2016. If an employer has carried out a general increase in wages to the vast majority of his employees in the period May 2nd 2015 to December 31st 2016, he may deduct that from the wage increase. However, no employee will receive less than 6.2% increase over the period from May 2nd.to January 31st.

Instead of 3.0% general wage increase on May 1st 2017 there will be 4.5% general wage increase and instead of 2.0% general wage increase on May 1st 2018 there will be 3.0% general wage increase.